Make Obama do it

After the election, Bill O’Reilly noted, “The white establishment is now the minority.” He was not talking about the white working class, but rather the white elite that has run our institutions since the country’s founding. O’Reilly continued, “And the voters, many of them, feel that this economic system is stacked against them, and they want stuff.” These comments betray his racism and racial stereotypes because it was clear that the people he claimed “wanted stuff” were people of color. We need to reaffirm that all people have a right to live in a society in which the economy serves their interests, and that people are entitled to basic human rights. As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights include economic rights – the right to a decent job, to organise and join unions, to a good education and quality health care, adequate housing, and to economic security when people become aged or disabled.

While the President can always blame an obstructionist Congress for the need to “compromise,” the way he sets the terms of the debate will invariably determine the outcome. 

We know that President Obama, like any president of the United States, faces immense pressures from Wall Street (bankers), the Chamber of Commerce, the Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex, the Prison Industrial Complex, and the insurance, fossil fuel and gun industries. All of these lobbies seek to promote their own interests - including the rights of capital over labor, criminalization of broad segments of society, reliance on carbon-based energy sources and wars to obtain them. They aim to profit from health care and privatise as much as possible, and to ensure that people do not believe they have any entitlements to health care or social security.

These are the many reasons to organize to make Obama do the right thing. But the burden is not only on the President. The burden is on us to organise the counter-pressure through all of the progressive constituencies. It is a challenge we must embrace.